There’s an interesting story about college kids and religiosity in today’s Inside Higher Ed: God and Majors.Many parents worry that college will drive religion out of their kids. Does it?
A new national study that looks at trends between study of certain subjects and religious observance provides some evidence to back up those worries, but also may surprise members of some disciplines and some faiths. And the research also finds that religious students are more likely than others to attend college….
Among the findings:
• [1] The odds of going to college increase for high school students who attend religious services more frequently or who view religion as more important in their lives….
• [2] Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity…. …The impact appears to be strongest in the social sciences.
• [3] Students in education and business show an increase in religiosity over their time at college.
• [4] Majoring in the biological or physical sciences does not affect religious attendance of students, but majoring in the physical sciences does negatively relate to the way students view the importance of religion in their lives.
• [5] Religious attendance is positively associated with staying in majors in the social sciences, biological sciences and business majors. For most vocational majors, the researchers found a negative relationship between religious attendance and staying in the same major….
…The study’s authors were interested in exploring whether a “scientific mindset” discouraged religiosity:
"Our results are … consistent with [that] overall theoretical framework guiding this research. We believe that there are important differences among the college majors in world views and overall philosophies of life....," they write.
"[O]ur results suggest that postmodernism, rather than science, is the bête noir – the strongest antagonist – of religiosity."
Some of these findings (as reported) are a bit perplexing, but I’m sure nobody’s surprised by indications that humanities and social science majors are negatively influenced concerning their religiosity.
I’m not at all surprised that education and business majors tend to move towards (or more deeply into) religion. I bet they go to chiropractors and read horoscopes, too.
They (i.e., people with education degrees) are in charge of K-12 education, you know. Our K-12 education system is a disaster you know.
Just sayin'.
That fourth "finding" is interesting. Of course, if most science majors are irreligious at the outset, we shouldn't be surprised that their college years won't change their church attendance. I would expect most college students (in demanding fields) to increase in sophistication and understanding of their irreligiousness, which is consistent with this "finding."
The fifth "finding" is curious. Does this refer to students who choose a major and stick with it? I would expect religious students to be more likely to do that, owing to their, um, faith-based thinking. It's harder, I would think, to decide what to do with one's life if one proceeds without the comfort and inertial intellectual infrastructure of a theistic world view.
Do you suppose there's good data on this?
